SWoRd

1ft of wire is 1ns, so it's close. Only the next letter in the alphabet and a factor of a million. I would say close enough for rock-n-roll. ;)

Whatever the problem is with the PC program, it's still there after updating to version 1.02. :( When trying to save an empty preset the program crashes with a Windows error message that the Helix program has stopped working, so still no possibility to backup presets, set lists or bundles. I did get the 1.04.1 firmware installed correctly, so now I need to check if the BSOD is gone with this update. It would have been nice to have the possibility to back up presets though. :mellow:

Yes, you are right. It's just for tweaking an existing preset, so you need to put it on the table for building presets from scratch. I do think it's nice though that you can tweak parameters without bending down. :)

I hear you on the stability issues. Getting it stable is the most important thing update. :) Regarding the back pains ... does the foot editing mode where you can edit parameters with the switches and pedal not work for you? I found it rather nice to use instead of bending down, and you can trim with your feet while you play.

It's certainly worth a try, although loosing an unused patch to a power on reset wouldn't be a major issue for me. It would be an acceptable work around until they can iron out the bugs in this thing. :)

Thinking about the consequences of the dreaded BSOD this new feature could be a very welcome addition: If you always remember to switch to an unused preset before turning the power off, you might get away with just resetting the unused preset every time you get a BSOD? That would indeed be a manageble work-around to mitigate the consequences of a reset.

Great news with an update. :) I'm hoping that these two items will remove my regularly appearing Black Screen Of Death: I also hope that the updated Helix application will now allow me to back up presets on the PC. This would make the Helix usable for me at band practice. I'm really keeping my fingers crossed on this. I've had a string of bad luck incidents with my floor boards lately. :( First the Helix didn't work reliably out of the box (regular BSOD and no ability to back up presets in the PC app) Then the previous saturday my HD500 died on me when setting up for a gig. It writes Update Flash in the display and won't boot. I've tried to update the flash 5 times with Monkey reporting update success, but it always boots with the same "Update Flash" message and freezes. With four hours to go before the gig I had to bring out my old X3-live board and recreate the 24 patches I use, which was a bit too exciting for me. I've played the last two gigs (this saturday and previous saturday) with the X3-live, and I survived but it wasn't fun with all these last minute changes. :( I'm updating tonight ... whish me luck. :) Soren PS: If my X3-live blows then I'm down to my very old XT-live, and I absolutely don't want to go there. :mellow:

You could measure the voltage of the amp switch input and then use that voltage as the off signal and 0V as the on signal. A switch shorting the input would place 0V in the input, and an open switch would not alter the voltage from the amp switching input. The potential problem is that a switch is very low impedance and the CV output might not be able to drive the amp switching input if it's too low impedance. If the CV output is done with an op-amp it's very easy to protect it from overload by either placing a resister in the output or choosing an op-amp with built in current limit, so it would be foolish of Line 6 not to have protected the CV output from damage, but it's your call if you want to try it out. I don't think your Helix will be harmed, but on the other hand I'm not going to buy you a new one if it does. :D

PeteF, Thank you for the tip. 😊 I will try to find another PC to see if that will fix the problem.

I did uninstall both the Helix program and the updater, but I did not delete any folders manually. I will try that.

Thank you for the tip. :) I did uninstall both the Helix program and the Updater before I installed the new versions (I also tried that several times with the previous versions), but I did not uninstall the driver. When installing the new versions I chose to install both program, driver and updater. After installation I checked the device manager for yellow exclamation marks without finding any. When displaying properties on the "Line 6 Helix" driver it says that this unit is working correctly. Do you recommend that I'm uninstalling both the Helix program and the Updater and then remove the "Line 6 Helix" driver manually before reinstalling the new software? I also have the Line 6 software for my HD500 installed which is working correctly. Could that be causing any problems?

If I were you I would be patient a little longer. I just updated both the PC program and the firmware and did a complete factory reset, but I still can't backup (Export) any patch, setlist or bundle. Windows simply shuts down the program saying that a problem has caused the program to stop working properly. It displays the patches correctly and I can rename a patch on the PC and it shows up correctly on the Helix, so the communication between the Helix and the PC program seems to be ok. It simply won't save anything without crashing, and it crashes before anything gets saved to the disk. I do hope the BSOD problem is a thing of the past with firmware 1.03.0, but I'm definitely not gigging this board until it's been stable at home for quite some time, and then I would still like to be able to back up my presets and bring a PC to the venue ... just in case.

The only problem is that many of us can't backup our presets! I just updated to PC version 1.01 and then updated the firmware to version 1.03.0 after having uninstalled the previous software. After doing a factory reset including global settings and IR (holding footswitch 9+10), the first thing I tried was to save the preset 01A "UD Double Nrm" in the FACTORY1 setlist by pressing Export. I still get this error message from Windows that directly translated from danish says: "Helix has stopped working" "A problem has caused the program to stop working properly. Windows will close the program and tell you if there is a solution." ... and there is one button to press that says "Close the program". I'm using Windows 7 home edition and obviously something is still not working, so the only thing I can hope for is that the BSOD is now a thing of the past. It would be a nice precaution though to be able to backup the presets. My confidence in this thing is currently not at a high level. :( ... hoping for the best though.

We do it the same way ... EQ the room on the mixer since it's not only the guitar that is affected.

Sounds very promising. :) I can't wait to get my unit working properly without that black screen so I can use it. I have the same experience with a JTV-69 doing both accoustic and electric patches ... much less tweaking than on the HD500.

I'm using a pair of M-Fidelity SA-43 custom in-ear monitors both for home and rehearsal/gig with the band. It allows me to play at gig level without disturbing anyone at home. IMHO they are also better than our JBL speakers we use for FOH (or any other speakers I've heard so far).

You can use the global EQ to boost bass and treble at low volume like the loudness function on a normal stereo, and then disable the EQ when you're playing at gig level. You have to use the same levels for gig and practice in each patch though in order for it to work with a single EQ setting. One practical way could be to tweak one very familiar patch at gig level and then use the global EQ to make the same patch sound similar at practice level. Then you should be able to tweak all other patches with the same EQ. I'm going to try that once Line 6 fixes the black screen or PC backup problem. Usually I'm tweaking patches at gig level with the same in-ear monitors I use with the band (M-Fidelity SA-43), but if the global EQ compensation is working well, it will be less tiring on the ears.

I do hope they prioritize the bug fixing. Especially the black screen and the inability to save preset, setlist or bundle in the PC program. These two are number 1 priority to me - until then my Helix is just a fancy paper weight.

I'm on 1.02.2 even though the PC program says 1.02.02. I've updated it several times but the PC program keep displaying the extra zero. One further thing I've noticed since the last black screen i got today (that I haven't reset yet), is that it usually boots to a black screen, stips and LEDs after the initial power on screen that displays correctly, but perhaps every 5th or 6th boot ends up with a black main screen but the correct label in the first (footswitch 1) scribble strip and the one above the pedal is also ok. The rest of the scribble strips are black, but the LED rings are colored correctly and the tap tempo is blinking. So there is a small difference in how it boots? With the colored LED rings on it is definitely a much cooler looking paperweight. ;)

I tried once again to get it working after having uninstalled and reinstalled everything on the PC. I could turn it on 6-7 times since yesterday with 8 presets without problems, but today I got the black screen again after having added the Uni-Vibe to one of the presets. I still can't save anything from the PC program. Trying to save a preset, setlist or bundle, Windows is shutting down the program after an error message has been shown about the program having stopped working. Is there any way to avoid the factory reset? I tried to press one of the bank up/down buttons during boot, but apparantly you get into some kind of test mode.

I did that in all my patches and had the black screen three times on the first day. I only got the black screen on power up after a break though - not while it was running. I did have it freeze one time while it was running, but that was fixed with a reboot without loosing all the presets. Could it be related to assigning the pedal to the output parameter? I did that to save a block for volume change.

Thank you for that confirmation Digital_Igloo! I know that it's a long shot being able to locate a software bug that you can't reliably recreate, so being able to recreate it is often a major step towards finding a solution. This is good news indeed, and I'm confident that you'll get to the bottom of this with some hard work ... and perhaps a good Shark emulator with hardware trace. I'm looking forward to the update. :)

I updated to 1.02.2 and made the factory reset including global settings after update, and I have had the black screen 3 times the first day (after the update which was the first I did). I have not been working with it since, but have turned it on and off several times since then to see if the black screen would repeat with an empty Helix, which it hasn't. I have not seen the black screen since I gave up on doing any presets after the 3rd reset on the first day. I can still not make a back up, because the program freezes when trying to save, but I can see the changes made on the Helix and I can also change the name of a patch in the program and it will change on the Helix as well. I can't really decide if I want to bother with recreating the 24 patches I need for our current set list before I get the ability to make a backup. I'm kind of hoping that Line 6 will make a statement about this issue before I spend more time on it. So my status is that I'm still using my HD500 even though the tone and feel in the Helix is much better. It just seems like a waste of time to repeat the same process and expect a different outcome. Isn't that somehow the definition of insanity? For reference I'm using the JTV-69 through the VDI.

You can also oversample and then downsample digitally to get more bits. The chip supports up to 216KHz sampling, so if you're running 48KHz internally you could sample the ADC's at 192KHz and downsample to 48KHz in software giving 12dB extra in theory, but often a higher samplerate comes with higher noise (depending on the design of the chip that is used) so it might be possible that you only get 9dB in total (pure guesswork from my side). The comment about the patent pretty much rules out this solution though, because digital down sampling is not a new thing and not something you could patent.

Thank you for the tip. I also had it on the 10 switch position. I will try it as well and report back if the issue is gone with 8 switches.